(re-run) After moving to farm country to teach high school Spanish, I watched my roommate Kristy come home one day with a German Shephard puppy. “Meet Shane!” she said. She hadn’t asked me. She hadn’t asked the landlord. When she did ask him, his response was, “Not in the house.” Kristy made Shane a bed… Continue reading First Dog, Lost Dog
Category: roommate
Loneliest Study Abroad Ever
(re-run) After three months in South America and six weeks of student teaching Catholic high school girls, I headed to Burgos, Spain, with 30 students and a handful of professors from Iowa State and the University of Iowa. It would be my way of earning the final credits of my dual degree. Linda, a high… Continue reading Loneliest Study Abroad Ever
Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
(re-run) It was 1977. I was finishing up ten weeks of student teaching in an American oil school in Caracas, Venezuela. My roommate, Christy, wanted to travel for two weeks before we went home to the states. She wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. I’d never heard of it. “It’s the lost city of… Continue reading Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
Orphan Thanksgiving and the Babe Mobile
Bruce was a lieutenant in the navy, and he lived with four bachelor roommates. They’d been out to sea for six months and were back for six months. A guy could save up a lot of money in six months, so Bruce was able to buy a silver Jaguar xke convertible. He nicknamed it his… Continue reading Orphan Thanksgiving and the Babe Mobile
My Life in Dogs
(re-run) It was a dogless childhood for me, until I was thirteen. I had asked. My sisters had asked. It wasn’t until our younger brother came home from school and said that somebody in his third-grade class was giving away a perfectly good dog and could he keep it? It happened so fast. I was… Continue reading My Life in Dogs
The Princeton Ploy
(re-run) It was Sue’s third day as a freshman at Temple University in Philadelphia. She was riding the elevator with her friends between Hardwick and Johnson Hall when he got on. He had all of his stuff. He was moving in. “School started already,” one of her friends said. “I was in San Diego,” he… Continue reading The Princeton Ploy
Memories of Hall and Oates CD
(re-run) I drove down the highway, Abandoned Luncheonette playing on the CD player (my car is 9 years old). I was belting the words, watching out for weavers, the cars that go in and out of traffic, scaring the wits out of those of us going at a steady speed in a single lane. It… Continue reading Memories of Hall and Oates CD
The Club No Woman Wants to Join
A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she spoke with a young woman yesterday who didn’t know about the Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings and didn’t know that Roe v. Wade was in jeopardy of being overturned. I am not surprised. Young people don’t watch the news, read the newspaper, or pay attention to… Continue reading The Club No Woman Wants to Join
First Dog, Lost Dog
After moving to farm country to teach high school Spanish, I watched my roommate Kristy come home one day with a German Shephard puppy. “Meet Shane!” she said. She hadn’t asked me. She hadn’t asked the landlord. When she did ask him, his response was, “Not in the house.” Kristy made Shane a bed of… Continue reading First Dog, Lost Dog
Asparagus, Anyone?
(re-run) The farm house was next to the highway, close enough for me to hear the train come by every night, and far enough away from the tracks to get used to sleeping through it. No houses could be seen from any window — just trees, sky, and cornfields. It was a peaceful place, sometimes… Continue reading Asparagus, Anyone?
